Collected Poems

by Chuck Guilford

Petroglyph

It was after a storm, the clouds just lifting,when I noticed the soft half-lightthat held the hills, not a trace of wind,but the afternoon sky rose like vanishing smoke.

Then I noticed a line of wet rock rooted into the earth, at the edge of a shadow. Off west, clouds still hung onto the mountain, clung fast, and I couldn’t — burnwas what I said then — that vision into language, with words that wouldflame yet smoulder — green juniper fire.

And still I think, if this last wisp of smokedrifts off, I might follow or just stayhere in the desert, a place I knew before I knewmy face — and later, at lastlodged in bedrock — meant wonder and understood.